


Hoof Prints

by shihadchick



Category: Saddle Club - Bonnie Bryant
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pine Hollow's pony club, Horse Wise, has been running successfully for almost three years -- and what better way to celebrate than to throw a party for all the riders? Of course, the Saddle Club have a little something extra up their sleeves...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hoof Prints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenella/gifts).



> Thanks to C for beta, and to my housemates (and twitter feed!) for sitting through all of my yelling.
> 
> Fenella, I hope this is as fun a trip down memory lane for you as it was for me -- I've really enjoyed getting to sit down and reread this series, and hope I've done justice to it! Happy Yuletide!

  1. _How do you fit four elephants into a Mini?_
  2. _Two in the front, two in the back._



* * *

“Bye, Mom,” Stevie Lake yelled, racing out the front door of her house and hoping she’d managed to time her escape well enough that she’d be half-way to Pine Hollow before her mom realized that she hadn’t actually finished cleaning her room yet. Stevie’s room was frequently a disaster — her dad sometimes said it should be registered as a  _ national _ disaster area — but her parents had been getting more mad and less amused by that recently, and she just hadn’t had time that morning to do more than stuff half the items on the floor under her bed, and shove the other half into her closet.

The closet door had shut, but just barely, and Stevie was a little bit worried that by the time she got home the door would have burst open and exploded all over her room like one of the monsters in the horror movies her older brother Chad liked to watch.

She had more important things on her mind that morning, though, and getting out of the house and to the stable was first and foremost.

Pine Hollow was the riding stable where she kept her horse Belle, and where she spent most of her time with her two best friends, Lisa Atwood and Carole Hanson. They’d first met at their riding lessons there several years ago, and almost immediately found that while they were all very different people, what they had in common was their love of horses, and everything involved with them.

In fact, they loved horses so much that they’d formed a group they called the Saddle Club, which had only two rules: the members had to love horses, and they had to always be willing to help each other. They’d done a good job of both those things over the last three or four years, and helping each other had turned out to involve all kinds of wild adventures from fox-hunting to helping other friends at international three-day events to traveling to a working ranch out West, to the shore in Virginia where they’d helped set up a bed-and-breakfast and seen the famous wild horses on the island of Chincoteague.

Stevie was determined not to be late. She had a bad habit of leaving things to the last minute sometimes — her bedroom being a case in point, she thought ruefully — and she knew it, but the Saddle Club had very important plans that morning and Stevie was absolutely determined not to let Lisa and Carole down.

They were — as far as Max knew — taking an early trail ride before doing all their usual stable chores for a Saturday, but what they were actually going to do was have a Saddle Club meeting at their favorite spot beside Willow Creek and plan for the party that was scheduled next week to celebrate three years of Horse Wise Pony Club at Pine Hollow.

Max Regnery was the owner of Pine Hollow stables, and he’d also been the one who asked his riders if they were interested in joining the United States Pony Club organization and most of them had jumped at the chance. It had been several years — and a few obstacles in the way, of course — since that time, and when Max had pointed out that their next mounted meeting would be the anniversary of the founding of their particular club, Stevie had been the first to jump to her feet and suggest that they have a party.

Max was no stranger to the enthusiasms of his young riders — especially Stevie and the rest of the Saddle Club — so he’d given in with good grace and agreed immediately. He added the caveats that they’d still be holding their regular meeting, to which everyone — he hadn’t needed to look pointedly at Stevie — would turn up on time, and that they would have to organize it themselves. That was perfectly fine with Stevie, Lisa and Carole; they prided themselves on throwing amazing parties, and they’d had a lot of practice by then.

* * *

“Hey, Stevie!” Lisa called, stopping in front of Belle’s stall to say hello. She’d got to Pine Hollow a few minutes after Stevie, since they both lived about a 10-minute walk away. 

Carole had to catch a bus if she couldn’t get a ride with her father, so they expected her soon but knew she’d be at the mercy of the bus schedules and might be a little late.

“Hi!” Stevie replied, straightening up from where she’d been bent over picking Belle’s hooves. She patted Belle’s shoulder affectionately and turned to greet Lisa.

“You’re wide awake this morning, for once,” Lisa said with a grin. 

She and Stevie had initially found their personalities clashed, but with years of friendship (and, admittedly a few problems in between that they’d happily solved) they were both happy to tease each other in a friendly way. And while Lisa was often up early to work on homework or whatever project or hobby was taking up her time outside of riding, Stevie was notorious for preferring to sleep in — unless there was riding on offer, of course.

“I have so many plans,” Stevie assured her, eyes sparkling with mischief. “So, so many.”

“Excellent,” Lisa said, “I brought a notebook so we can figure out who needs to do what, and what supplies we’ll need, too. We can probably use the same party food list as the last Hallowe’en party, I figure?”

“Lisa, I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Stevie said sincerely.

“End up with three types of punch and no finger sandwiches?” Lisa suggested.

“Hey, it was Hallowe’en,” Stevie protested. “We would’ve had three types of  _ zombie _ finger sandwiches! …but probably no soda, so you’re right.”

“And right now I need to go groom Prancer,” Lisa said with a nod, pushing back the sleeve of her neatly tailored blouse to check the time on her watch.

Lisa gave Belle one last pat, smoothing her forelock down from where it was doing its best to be the horse version of a mohawk. Stevie would say she had no idea how Belle could get so dirty overnight in just a stall, but Stevie’s friends privately suspected it was a case of like horse, like owner. A little guiltily, Stevie ran a hand over the back of her hair and tried to flatten that, too. She hadn’t exactly stopped to brush her hair that morning, either.

“If Carole isn’t here by the time we’re done, want to help me groom Starlight before we tack up?” Stevie suggested.

Carole spent as much time as she possibly could at the stables, but the Willow Creek buses had been a little unreliable lately, and she’d been fifteen or twenty minutes later than usual a couple of times over the last month. Lisa and Stevie both knew how much Carole loved her horse Starlight, a beautiful young bay gelding; so much so that Carole even claimed to enjoy mucking out his stall, which was necessary but not exactly anyone’s favorite chore. If they at least started to groom Starlight for her then they’d all be able to leave on their trail ride earlier once Carole got to Pine Hollow. It was the best plan, and it definitely came under the Saddle Club rules about helping each other out.

“Deal,” Lisa said, and disappeared off to Prancer’s stall.

* * *

Prancer was a Thoroughbred, an ex-racehorse who had to retire when a broken bone in her foot indicated a hereditary weakness that made her unsuitable to race ever again, or to become a broodmare. She seemed to love and trust children and teenagers far more than adults, and that sweet nature had been what had prompted Max and Pine Hollow’s vet, Judy Barker, to buy her from her previous owner and start training her for the riding school.

The broken bone had healed after several months, and while it would never be safe for her to race, she was perfectly capable of everything the horses at Pine Hollow would be expected to do. Lisa was the only member of the Saddle Club who did not have her own horse, but she rode Prancer often enough that she almost counted as ‘hers’.

Lisa let herself into Prancer’s stall, running her hand along her flanks as she said, “Hey, Prancer, ready for a trail ride?”

Prancer made a quiet whickering noise as if she was answering, and Lisa grinned to herself. Max was always telling them that horses couldn’t understand English, but sometimes it really seemed like they did. Prancer definitely seemed to know ‘carrot’, that was for sure.

Lisa let her thoughts drift as she worked on grooming Prancer, brushing the curry comb along her sides in smooth, even strokes. Her coat was a beautiful deep brown, and shone with the effect of good health and frequent careful grooming, and Lisa found it very satisfying to help Prancer look her best. She fancied the mare held her head a little higher when she knew she looked good, too — horses often seemed to show off just a little when they were being groomed for special occasions. Of course, other times they liked to roll in mud ten minutes after they’d been groomed and make their riders start all over again.

“Looks like you had a quiet night, huh girl?” Lisa said to her, brushing a few flecks of dried mud off her hocks; Prancer was already pretty clean, and it hadn’t rained for a few days either, which helped a lot when the horses were out in the field by the stable and not anywhere near the creek.

It didn’t take Lisa very long at all to have Prancer groomed and ready to be tacked up, so with one last pat to the side of her neck, she ducked out of the stall again and walked down to check up on Starlight.

Carole’s horse was standing quietly in his stall, with no sign of his owner. Lisa figured Stevie had to be about done with Belle, which meant she should go get Starlight’s grooming bucket so they could get started. She turned away from Starlight just in time to walk right into Stevie who was barreling down the hall with the grooming bucket in one hand and with a lot more speed than was technically allowed. They weren’t allowed to run in the stable, but Stevie had perfected a fast walk that — just — passed muster with Max.

“Oof!” Lisa said, narrowing her eyes at Stevie, who gave her an unrepentant grin, but did also say sorry.

The two of them cross-tied Starlight and got to work with currycomb and hoof-pick respectively, working Starlight over from nose to tail. They were almost done when they heard footsteps coming down the aisle, and a few seconds later Carole was ducking into the stall, saying “Hi!” first to Starlight — not that Lisa or Stevie could blame her — and then to them.

“Bus late again?” Lisa asked sympathetically, straightening up and pushing her bangs out of her eyes.

“Ugh,” Carole said with some feeling, before letting Stevie hand her the curry comb to finish up. “Yeah. Thank you for getting started on grooming Starlight for me, though.”

“Any time,” Lisa and Stevie said in unison, and then grinned at each other and at Carole. They had to group high-five — what they called a high-fifteen — at that. “We really do kinda spend a lot of time together, huh?” Carole said, before looking at her own watch and wincing. “And on that note, who’s ready to tack up?”

“Meet you at the horseshoe in five!” Stevie said, and took off at her usual fast walk for the tack room, with Lisa right on her heels.

Carole finished the last of Starlight’s morning grooming, and gave him a piece of carrot as a treat. “Sorry I missed you this morning, boy,” she told him quietly, still a little annoyed that the bus had let her down again. “I’ll make it up to you with a nice trail ride.”

Starlight tossed his head as if to agree with her, and Carole gave him one last pat before heading to the tack room to pick up her own saddle and bridle.

Tacking up didn’t take any of them very long at all, and almost before she knew it Carole was mounting up beside the good luck horseshoe, letting her hand brush over the worn metal before getting her foot in the stirrup and swinging up into the saddle. Lisa and Stevie followed suit, careful as ever to keep up one of Pine Hollow’s oldest and most beloved traditions. Every rider at Pine Hollow touched the horseshoe before riding, and there’d never been a serious injury. Of course, as Lisa logically pointed out, that was probably more because touching the horseshoe reminded them to be careful and pay attention, but Carole liked the reassurance of the tradition, as well.

The Saddle Club walked their horses out onto the trail, letting them warm up, and taking turns opening and closing the gates behind them. They were all well trained in good trail-riding manners, and part of that was making sure any gate a rider opened got closed again behind them. Most of the farmers in the area around Pine Hollow were happy to let Max’s riders across their land because they knew they could depend on them not to harm any of the fields or the livestock, and that was a trust they were all happy to repay.

“Shall we head to the creek?” Lisa asked, somewhat rhetorically, since it was their favorite spot for Saddle Club meetings — outside of the ice-cream parlor, that was.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Stevie yelled, which was as good as a yes, especially when she followed that up by signalling Belle for first a trot and then a canter, sitting deep in the saddle and tightening her legs.

“Cheater!” Carole yelled back, but good-naturedly, because this wasn’t exactly the first time Stevie had pulled this trick, nor would it be the last, and she signalled Starlight to follow. 

Starlight was more than happy to break into his smooth, rocking canter — as soon as Belle had sped up he’d been eager to follow, but Carole’s training was paying off, because other than some slight restiveness, he had waited patiently for her to use her aids rather than taking off on his own.

Bringing up the end, Lisa shook her head with a smile and then let Prancer — who was pulling at the bit a little and very eager to get moving — canter as well. Stevie had something of a head start, but Prancer was still every inch a thoroughbred and competitive enough to want to catch up, so Lisa encouraged her to lengthen her strides and start pulling back some of the distance. Prancer tried to break into a gallop, which was faster than was probably safe along that part of the trail, so Lisa sat back, using her legs and seat and a light touch on the reins to firmly tell her no, and bring her back to a canter. Prancer snorted, but obediently settled into a fast canter, gaining on Starlight and Belle steadily. Lisa enjoyed a moment of quiet pride in her skills, and in Prancer’s ever-growing attention to her training, and then turned her attention back onto the trail. It would be no fun at all if a low tree branch knocked one of them out of the saddle and ruined their morning ride — and most likely their breeches.

As they got closer to the creek all three girls slowed back to a trot, and then a walk, letting the horses pick their own pace as they circled into the clearing where Willow Creek cut across the riding trail.

“I’m not sure who won,” Stevie said, as they dismounted, before ground-tying the horses and walking over to dangle their feet into the cool, swiftly moving water of the creek.

“I think we all won,” Carole said. “That was much better than sitting at the bus stop, that’s for sure.”

“So,” Lisa said, bringing them back to the business at hand as she pulled her notebook and a pen out of the pocket of her coat. “Should we get started on the planning?”

“What do we need first?” Carole asked, leaning back on her hands and looking up at the sky. 

There were the smallest patches of clouds skidding near the horizon, but it was mostly a pure blue, and even though the sun hadn’t been up for more than a couple of hours at most it felt like it was going to get warm.

“We need a theme,” Stevie said decisively. “Or a game or activity that we can do after the Horse Wise meeting, before everyone stuffs themselves with soda and pizza and whatever other junk food we get.”

“Costume party?” Carole suggested, a little dubiously. 

They’d had a couple of dress-up events over the years, with mixed success, although all three of them looked back fondly on the Hallowe’en where they’d had a group costume as the Three Blind Mice. They’d also had a costume race in the gymkhana Stevie had helped organize, which had been extremely funny to watch, if nothing else.

“Too annoying right after riding,” Stevie said after a moment, although she’d looked tempted. Stevie loved costume parties.

“And it’s probably too short notice,” Lisa added. “We’ve only got a week to do this, so we should probably keep it pretty simple.”

“Wild West?” Stevie suggested, thinking about how many plaid shirts she had buried somewhere in her closet, and the cowboy hat she was pretty sure hadn’t actually been stolen by any of her brothers, or glued to something. Hopefully.

“Or a disco dance party?” Lisa suggested. “I bet your dad has a disco ball, Carole.”

“I think he has four,” Carole said. Her father loved the music of the 1950s and collected memorabilia and kooky knick-knacks from that time period as well, and while the 1970s was a bit later than he usually liked, she was pretty sure that hadn’t stopped him in this instance.

“Where would we hang it, though?” Stevie asked, practically, and the three of them lapsed into silence while they thought that over. They’d also need to set up music if they wanted to dance, and Stevie wasn’t sure her precious battery-operated cassette player would be loud enough for a dance party. They’d got around that issue for the barn dance by having a band play, but they definitely didn’t have the time - or budget - for that this time.

“Next idea,” Lisa said, reluctantly, after they’d agreed that it was a good idea but not going to work.

“Hrm,” Stevie said, trailing the toe of her riding boots in the water and splashing it around as she swung her feet and thought. Looking down at the creek, she saw a fallen leaf drift into the current and swirl around before being taken downstream and out of sight, and that sparked a thought. “Pirates!”

“I don’t think they’d get their boat down this little creek,” Carole joked.

“No, for the party,” Stevie said. “It’s an easy costume for everyone, and I bet we could find some chocolate doubloons at the party supply store at the mall. We could turn one of the feed containers into a treasure chest!”

“Ooh,” Lisa said, thinking that over. “Actually, I’ve got an even better idea.” Carole and Stevie sat up attentively. They all did their best thinking as a group. “We could have a treasure hunt!”

“I love it,” Stevie said immediately, visions of elaborate maps with X Marks the Spot drawn on them and hidden loot. Maybe they could dig up some real treasure — although of course, she reminded herself, they were far enough from the ocean that there probably hadn’t ever been any real pirates in Willow Creek. Not even in the 1700s. It was fun to think about, though.

“I don’t know,” Carole said, frowning. “I don’t think Max would want people digging up anything. And holes in the field would be dangerous for the horses.”

Carole could always be depended on to think of the horse-related side first, and this was no different.

“What if…” Stevie said, thinking it through out loud. “What if we put clues in a few places and got Max to let us ride for the first part of it, so none of them are actually buried, and then have the final clue lead back to the hay barn? We can hide some prizes in the hay, so it’ll be fun to find them but won’t make too much of a mess.”

“I don’t think Mrs Reg would like us digging up her garden beds, that’s for sure,” Lisa said, with an all-too-vivid memory of the last time the Saddle Club had had to spend time ‘fixing’ a garden they’d been responsible for damaging. A prank on Stevie’s brothers had gone horribly wrong, and Lisa was pretty sure she’d been seeing Mrs Lake’s prized flower beds in her dreams for weeks afterward.

“I bet no one would guess about where the prizes were hidden,” Carole said, considering it. “Which means they have to follow the clues and can’t skip ahead.”

“And everyone will have to work together,” Lisa said, “So Max will like that, too — the younger kids like May and Corey and Jasmine can participate, too. Stevie, I bet you can write some really tricky clues.”

“What rhymes with “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”?” Stevie mused out loud, and Carole and Lisa exchanged an amused look. Writing pirate-themed clues was definitely right up Stevie’s alley.

“Carole, could you figure out where the trail should lead them?” Lisa said, trying to think of the best way to utilize Carole’s talents. She’d be able to make sure the Pony Clubbers got to take a safe and fun route, and would make sure there wasn’t going to be anything too difficult to deal with on the way. 

Lisa thought she would probably be the best to draw a map, since she was good at art. And she’d just read something the other day about how they made the brown, old-looking parchment paper in movies and on TV, and if she remembered all the ingredients correctly that was something she could try to do, too.

“I think so,” Carole said, brows drawn together like she was already planning out a route in her head. “Just- this is going to be an awful lot of work, you guys. Do you really think we can pull this off in a week?”

She and Stevie and Lisa all looked at each other in silence for a long moment, all thinking hard, trying to see what the other two thought, and Lisa was the first one who broke into a huge grin — with Stevie and Carole doing the same almost immediately.

“We’ll make it work,” Lisa said definitively, and Stevie and Carole agreed with a “Yeah!” and another high-fifteen.

* * *

_ Q: How do you fit four giraffes into a Mini? _

_ A: You can’t, the elephants are already in there. _

* * *

“Stevie, you should go sweet-talk Max into agreeing with our idea,” Lisa said, as they dismounted back at the stable after finishing up their trail ride and walking the horses until they were cooled down.

“Why is that my job?” Stevie grumbled, but they all knew she was the absolute best at talking Max — or any other adult — into anything, so she hadn’t expected anything different.

“Just go use your Stevie magic,” Carole told her unsympathetically. “Lisa and I will even untack Belle for you.”

“Well, if you put it that way,” Stevie said, and put Belle’s reins into Lisa’s outstretched hand. “I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute.”

Max was in his office when Stevie came around the corner, and tapped on the side of the door frame, waiting until she was sure he was free to listen.

“So, Max,” she started, hoping inspiration would strike. It usually did. Stevie prided herself on her ability to come up with a good story when she needed one, and this time she wouldn’t even have to stretch the truth at all. She sat up straighter in the chair, shoulders back in good riding position, radiating confidence.

“Go ahead, Stevie,” he said, leaning back in his chair, and Stevie thought that maybe she could see the tiny glimmering of a smile around the corners of his mouth. Max was usually very serious about anything to do with the stable, though, so Stevie reminded herself to not go overboard. She was there to talk Max into letting them do this, not making him think it would be any extra work for him or Red or Mrs Reg.

“For the party next week,” she started, “We were thinking maybe a pirate theme.”

“Pirates?” Max repeated. “Uh, Stevie, you remember that this is Willow Creek, not Norfolk, right?”

“We know there weren’t really pirates here,” she rushed to assure him, although now Stevie was also kind of wondering if maybe there had been river pirates back when the early settlers had been in Virginia, but that was probably not a thought she had to share with Max right then. “But we thought we could do a treasure hunt to start — after the mounted meeting, maybe down the trails…?”

“Stevie, I don’t know if digging up any of the fields or woods — even if it is Pine Hollow property — is a good idea—” Max started to say, and Stevie just kept talking right over top of him, the words pouring out in a hurry as she got into it.

“We already thought of a way around that,” she said. “We’ll make sure all the clues are— are in bottles, or boxes, or maybe stuck to trees, that kind of thing,” and Stevie hoped she’d be able to remember all these ideas later to pass them on to Lisa and Carole, but she was really on a roll by that point. “We already figured out where the final treasure should be — back here at the stables. No digging anywhere, I promise. It’ll be really fun, and everyone can do it, too, we figured out how to make sure the little kids have fun as well as the older ones, you know, it’ll be the talk of the town!” 

Stevie wasn’t sure, but she thought Max might have mumbled something like “That’s what I’m afraid of,” at that point, but that didn’t seem very likely, so she kept going, rushing to get all the details out before Max could come up with any counter-arguments.

“And we’ll make sure that all the horses are untacked and groomed before anyone finishes the treasure hunt. Maybe we can put the final clue under someone’s grooming bucket! So the horses would have fun, too.” That was important, too; the horses were just as big a part of Pony Club as the riders were, and Stevie thought it would be even better to make sure they all enjoyed the treasure hunt as well. Maybe there should be some carrot sticks in the ‘loot’, now that she was thinking about it.

“That seems pretty reasonable,” Max said, after a moment’s thought. “It also sounds like it might be a lot of work. Are you sure you can manage? You girls do all still have school this week, too.”

Stevie made a face automatically at that thought; she didn’t have any essays or major projects due at the moment, but school was never her favorite at the best of times, not like Lisa, who got straight As, or Carole, who at least managed to get good enough grades to make sure she was never in danger of being told she couldn’t ride until her grades improved. Stevie was usually just scraping by with enough effort that Max — who had strong feelings about his riders putting just as much work into their own schooling as they did their horses — would let her keep riding.

“We can definitely do it,” she said, as positively as she could. They’d pulled together bigger things with less time, and they knew the woods and the area around Pine Hollow like the backs of their hands. How hard could it be?

“Is there anything you need me to do?” Max asked, and Stevie crossed her fingers behind her back — every bit of luck counted — and said, “Well, there is one thing.”

Max looked suspicious.

“Could we maybe leave cleaning the tack until after the party? Just this once?” Stevie didn’t say that no one really felt in the mood for pizza or other finger food when they’d just got their hands covered in saddle soap, but she didn’t think she had to. Max could probably work that out for himself.

“Well,” he said, drawing the word out. “I guess — just this once — I can let it slide for a couple of hours. But I want all that tack inspection-ready before you all leave the stables.”

“Aye-aye, sir— I mean, captain!” Stevie corrected herself, and bounced to her feet. “So I can go tell Lisa and Carole that we’re all aboard?”

“Yes, you may,” Max said, and as Stevie whooped with delight, he added, “Stevie, just keep it at a reasonable volume.”

“Sure, Max,” she said, and dashed back to find the rest of the Saddle Club.

“And no running in the stable,” Max yelled after her, so Stevie slowed down. Just a fraction.

Belle was cross-tied in her stall when Stevie got back to check up on her, the grooming bucket set just outside the stall — and just out of her reach, since Belle had also recently developed a fondness for trying to pick up her dandy brush with her teeth. As much as Stevie loved her horse, she did not love having to clean horse slobber off her grooming tools.

“You’re going to have such a great time on the treasure hunt, Belle,” Stevie told her, pick in one hand and running the other down her leg to get her to lift up her hoof so she could clean them out, digging the pick under the packed mud and tiny bits of gravel compacted around her shoes. She let herself imagine them leading the pack of Pony Clubbers, racing for the next clue, Stevie’s riding helmet transformed in her imagination into a pirate captain’s hat, her crop a cutlass to wave overhead, and she’d just gotten to wondering if maybe they could make flags — or, no, that would maybe spook some of the horses, like Topside. Maybe instead she could brush a Jolly Roger design into Belle’s rump?

“Whoa, Stevie, I think you’ve brushed the same spot about five times, now,” Carole said from outside the stall, and Stevie blinked, paying more attention to what she was doing as well as her daydreams, and whoops, she was right, Belle was pretty much clean already. She’d been enjoying the extra attention of course, just leaning into where Stevie was running the body brush over her shoulder and delicately lipping at the flake of hay in front of her.

“Imagining your adventure on the high seas?” Carole asked, proving once again that she knew Stevie very, very well.

“In the high, uh, woodlands,” Stevie corrected, “But yeah. Are you guys finished?”

“Yup,” Carole said, “And Lisa even cleaned your tack, so as soon as you’re done with Belle we can go change.”

“You guys are the best friends a girl could have,” Stevie told her happily, as she and Carole walked into the tack room where Lisa had just finished putting Stevie’s saddle back on its stand, and was using the boot jack by the lockers to change out of her long riding boots, her sneakers in her hand.

“We should get some more planning done before the unmounted meeting this afternoon,” Lisa said. “I brought lunch, but I was thinking—”

“That we should take a break at TDs first?” Carole finished, because it was easy enough to guess what Lisa was thinking right then. Mostly because it was the same thing they were all thinking — grooming and cleaning tack made you hot and sweaty, the day had warmed up significantly since they’d got back from their early ride, and getting an ice-cream sundae at Tastee Delights at the mall just down the road was much more appealing than going to sit outside and eat slightly dry sandwiches under one of the shady trees.

“Great minds definitely think alike,” Lisa said.

Besides, Carole thought, they just could eat their sandwiches when they got back to Pine Hollow later, anyway. That would keep them going through the Pony Club meeting with a local saddle-maker, who was going to give a demonstration on how saddles were made and fitted to any horse to make sure they were safe and comfortable.

Carole was looking forward to it. Naturally, she’d read about some details of how tack was made, and she knew how to check that her tack fit her horse correctly, but someone who spent all their working hours actually making saddles probably knew all kinds of information that wasn’t in any of the books she’d read yet. Carole didn’t think she’d ever get sick of learning everything there possibly was to know about horses.

* * *

_ Q: How can you tell if an elephant’s in your refrigerator?  _

_ A: Footprints in the peanut butter. _

* * *

Stevie treated Lisa to a sundae that afternoon at TDs, as thanks for helping with Belle. Carole dug a pile of dimes out of her wallet, which she knew looked as if she’d raided her piggy bank, but had just been the result of actually cleaning her room and pulling change out of the pockets of almost every pair of jeans or jodhpurs that that had been in her laundry basket. After she’d checked in the sofa cushions as well she had managed to get just enough together for a small hot fudge sundae.

“Same for me, thanks,” Lisa said.

Their waitress scribbled Lisa and Carole’s orders onto her pad, and then turned to Stevie, steeling herself with obvious effort.

“I’d like…” Stevie started, gaze far enough away that Lisa had a sneaking suspicion she was still half-daydreaming and not really thinking about her sundae. “One scoop of chocolate and one of coconut ice cream, with pineapple chunks.”

That was almost a normal order, by anyone’s standards, and positively boring for Stevie. The waitress just started to look slightly relieved when Stevie shook herself and added, “Oh, and marshmallow fluff and peanut butter, please.”

“There it is,” their waitress sighed, and walked back behind the counter, shaking her head the whole way.

“One day you’ll come up with something too gross even for you to eat,” Carole said, but when their sundaes turned up all three of them just dug in with enthusiasm, and Stevie was even the first to finish.

She grabbed a napkin to check her face was clean, and then dug into her pockets to make sure she actually did have her wallet and wasn’t going to have to borrow a couple dollars from Lisa in order to treat her and cover her own sundae.

“That reminds me,” Stevie said, after she’d checked the sadly small number of dollar bills folded into her wallet. “What prizes should we have for the treasure hunt? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a whole lot of spare pocket money this week.”

“When do you ever have spare pocket money?” Lisa teased, because Stevie was famous for running through any cash she had well in advance of when her parents paid it. That had only got worse since she got Belle, since now Stevie’s money had to cover a lot more than just the odd cassette and treats at TDs.

“You know what I mean,” Stevie said. “Carole, any bright ideas?”

“I think what you said earlier about chocolate doubloons was a great idea,” Carole said slowly. “Maybe we could decorate a shoebox to look like a treasure chest?”

“We could cover it with foil!” Lisa suggested. “So it would be shiny and it would stand out.”

“I bet we could get a couple of new hoof-picks from the Saddlery, too,” Carole said. “They’re cheap enough, and they’re also shiny enough to count as ‘treasure’.”

“How would we decide who gets them, though?” Lisa asked. “We just told Max this would be a group activity.”

“Maybe we could have a mini knowdown at the party?” Stevie put in. “A chocolate coin for all the riders, some carrot sticks for the horses, and a beginner, intermediate and senior prize?” 

Knowdowns were a Pony Club tradition, a quiz to test members on all aspects of horse care, and the Saddle Club was very familiar with them by this point.

“Let’s make it a question at one of the treasure map points,” Lisa said, expanding on Stevie’s idea. “That way you only need one person to be the first to answer.” And they wouldn’t have to keep everyone standing around for a pop quiz when they could be enjoying the party, because while some of the Pony Club members would enjoy that, some of the others definitely would not.

“Great idea,” Stevie said, nodding firmly, and waited for Lisa to write that down, and circle the ‘questions on the trail!’ note. “And if there’s three levels to get prizes for then we can buy one each.”

“I think I can still afford a hoof-pick,” Carole agreed, stirring her index finger through the sad pile of silver coins on the table by her ice-cream dish. “I might have to raid the couch cushions again if we need to buy anything else, though!”

“We could just use the Hallowe’en decorations again,” Lisa said practically. “The skeleton cut-outs are pretty close to a pirate theme. I can make a flyer for the party on the computer tonight and we can pin it up by the hard hats so that everyone knows what the theme is even if they’re not at the meeting today.”

Pony Clubbers were expected to attend every meeting, mounted or unmounted, but what Lisa was referring to — as Carole and Stevie were well aware — was that some members of the Pony Club had a habit of only turning up to the mounted meetings, and acting like anything other than riding itself was unimportant. They weren’t naming names, but Veronica DiAngelo, a snobby rich girl who also had her own horse, a beautiful thoroughbred named Danny, was probably number one on the list of names they could mention. She’d be there for next week’s mounted meeting for sure, and for the party afterwards, though, and — Stevie thought with an edge of bitterness — as soon as she saw what the theme for the party was, she’d probably turn up in a perfect recreation of a pirate captain’s uniform, hired from some fancy Washington DC costume shop.

“If only we could make her walk the plank,” Stevie sighed, and neither Carole nor Lisa had to ask who she was thinking about.

“What about food?” Lisa said, pencil hovering over the next item in her ‘To Organise’ list.

“Assign everyone something at the meeting this afternoon,” Carole said instantly. “That way we’ll all know who’s bringing what, and we don’t have to worry about that part ourselves.”

“The treasure hunt is probably going to be enough work by itself, yeah,” Lisa said, and she was a little worried about that, even while it was exciting. It was a pretty ambitious project to try and pack into a week, that was for sure.

“Let’s meet tomorrow to decide where the trail ride should go,” Stevie said. “We can figure out how to set the clues out then, too.” Stevie had run a scavenger hunt in the woods one Hallowe’en and she figured this wouldn’t be too different to that. And she had some good ideas percolating about ways to hide clues.

“Sounds good to me,” Carole said, and “Me too,” Lisa said.

The fact that they’d have to ride whatever circuit they decided on to ‘test’ that it would work was, of course, just a bonus.

“Should we head back to the stable now?” Carole asked, checking the time. They had about an hour before the meeting, which would be just enough time to muck out some of the stalls they hadn’t got to in the morning.

“Ready to scrub the decks, captain!” Lisa said, and gave her a mock salute.

* * *

The talk with the saddle-maker had been just as interesting as Lisa would have expected. Max liked to break up Horse Wise’s unmounted meetings with interesting speakers from outside the stable in addition to their regular lessons on every aspect of horsemanship.

Lisa had actually flipped to the back of the notebook she was using to plan the treasure hunt and party and taken some notes during Ms Tait’s talk, mostly about the interesting things she either wanted to discuss with Stevie and Carole afterward, or to look up herself later. Her parents had bought a computer recently, and Lisa was enjoying being able to use the internet to find out more about horses — and just about everything else. The library in Willow Creek was pretty great, but they didn’t have everything.

“So, are you seeing saddle-fitting in your future, Lisa?” Colonel Hanson asked with a teasing grin. Carole’s father was one of the parent volunteers who helped out at Horse Wise, and while he hadn’t known much of anything about horses when he started, he was a quick learner, and always enthusiastic. He and Stevie got on particularly well, sharing a love of both the 1950s and of terrible jokes.

“Probably just the one on Prancer’s back,” Lisa replied, laughing. It  _ had _ been an interesting talk, but she was also pretty certain she was a lot more interested in sitting on a saddle than in making them.

“Colonel Hanson!” Stevie said, coming up to join Carole and Lisa and the Colonel. “I was hoping you’d be here today.”

“Oh no,” Carole said, accurately translating the look on Stevie’s face. “She has new jokes, doesn’t she.”

Lisa took one look at the twinkle in Stevie’s eye and had to conclude that Carole was right.

“Why don’t we go check up on Starlight one last time before you head home?” She suggested, and she and Carole made their escape just as Stevie was starting to say, “So, have you heard the one about what Tarzan said when he saw four elephants coming over the hill?”

* * *

“Dad,” Carole called, leaning into the fridge and pushing a few containers of leftovers around, looking for something that looked a bit more appetising than three-day-old bologna. “What happened to the leftover pizza?”

“The pizza I had for breakfast?” Colonel Hanson asked, looking ever so slightly sheepish.

“Oh,” Carole said. “So I guess I can’t take that to Pine Hollow for lunch, huh?”

“Sorry, sweetie,” he said. “Guess you’re stuck with the old standby. I did buy bread yesterday, at least.”

“Oh, good,” Carole replied. “I didn’t see that.”

“Guess your pizza-vision must have blocked it,” the Colonel said, opening the larder and pointing at the loaf of wonder bread sitting at eye level in front of several jars of spaghetti sauce.

“Thanks, Dad,” Carole said, and dug out strawberry jelly and peanut butter to make a stack of PB&Js for later.

“I’d ask what you girls are planning today,” he said, “But since I’d have to open an investigation with the FBI if it wasn’t riding, instead I’ll just ask if you want a ride to the stables.”

“That would be great,” Carole said, putting her peanut butter-sticky knife down carefully on top of the bread and stepping over to give her father a quick hug. “You’re the best. Thanks Dad.”

“What can I say, I like getting approval from the ranks,” he joked.

Carole stacked another couple of sandwiches together, looking around for a bag to keep them in until she could transfer them to the small refrigerator in the tack room that riders were allowed to use. She was already hard at work thinking through where they should run the treasure hunt, and that reminded her of another problem that her father might have some suggestions for.

“Dad,” she started. “What’s the easiest way to make a map?”

“A map?” he repeated. “I’m pretty sure I know the way to Pine Hollow by now.” Carole groaned at the bad joke.

“No, for— the woods and the fields around Pine Hollow. We’re planning a treasure hunt for the Horse Wise party.” That part wasn’t going to be a secret, of course, just the actual route would be.

Carole couldn’t remember if they’d mentioned their exact plan at the Horse Wise meeting yesterday, but they’d been so busy making sure that all the Pony Clubbers had agreed to bring a food or drink item that she was pretty sure they hadn’t actually said anything else. 

Max had been practically breathing down their necks waiting for them to finish up so he could introduce Ms Tait, and the only reason Carole was confident they hadn’t forgotten anything important for the party was because Lisa had been taking furious notes and ticking things off on her checklist the whole time that Stevie and Carole had been riding herd on the other Pony Clubbers and keeping them on topic.

“For what you want to do,” the Colonel said, thinking it through, tapping his fingers on the kitchen bench top in time with the song playing on the radio, a golden oldie from Bill Haley and the Comets. “There’s two ways to go about it. The first one is you copy an existing map, and add whatever signposts or clues you need on top of it—”

Carole imagined that for a moment. It sounded like an awful lot of work, and she wasn’t actually sure anyone would have a map of the area around the stables. She was pretty certain that most people learned where the trails led just by riding them.

“— or you draw a very basic map, by putting major landmarks on it, and measuring off the directions and distances. You could count paces—” “Or Starlight’s strides!” Carole suggested. “Or that, yes,” he said. “Or the time it takes to ride at a walk or a trot. Something that’s simple enough to follow. I have a compass you can borrow, then you can be sure you haven’t got turned around and are telling people to ride south when it’s really north.”

“Dad,” Carole groaned.

“You know Stevie will want to do something fiendish and confusing,” he said. “You may as well be prepared.”

Carole couldn’t argue with that.

The Colonel went into his study and dug around in his desk for a few minutes, coming back with a small silver compass on a chain.

“You can clip it onto your saddle or your belt,” he suggested. “It’ll survive if it rains, but try not to drop it in the creek or anything like that. It was your grandfather’s.”

“We’ll look after it,” Carole promised.

* * *

_ Q: How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator? _

_ A: Two sets of footprints in the peanut butter. _

* * *

The Colonel dropped Carole off in the stable driveway, though he paused to double-check she had everything before leaving. There had been several infamous incidents where Carole had been ready to go to the stable only to find she was missing her lunch, or her toothbrush for overnight camp, or in one particularly memorable moment that her father was never going to let her live down - was still in her pajamas.

“I’ve got everything,” she said, and hugged her dad quickly before he got back into the car to head over to the base to catch up on some paperwork.

Carole had beaten Lisa and Stevie to the stable that morning, so she stashed her lunch in the fridge in the tack room and let herself into Starlight’s stall, happily absorbed in grooming him. First Lisa and then Stevie popped their heads in as well, patted Starlight and said hi to Carole before going to get their own horses ready.

Before too long, they had all finished grooming and tacked up, and met — as usual — by the lucky horseshoe.

“So where to first?” Stevie asked, taking the lead. Stevie was usually a good choice for that; she could be quick and decisive, although sometimes that also meant impulsive.

“I was thinking,” Carole said, “that we should just pick four or five spots for the horseback part, and take notes about how to go from one to the other. That can go on the map, and then it won’t be too complicated.”

“Or take too long,” Lisa said, nodding. “Max said we can ride for part of this but I don’t think we’ll want to spend too long on it after the horses have already worked for most of a full lesson before that.”

“Plus, the Pony Clubbers might stampede if they have to wait too long for their snacks afterward,” Stevie joked. Horse Wise was filled with riders who were passionate about riding, from the newest beginners to the more experienced riders, but they were all also notorious for their ability to eat a lot. Riding was hungry work, Stevie always liked to claim, and whenever they had a cookout — like at Max’s famous Pine Hollow Fourth of July party — it always seemed like the food vanished in a flash.

“I can make notes every time we stop,” Lisa said. “And we should make them double back at least once, too,” Lisa added. “It’s a bit too easy if they just have to ride one of the usual trails and look out for a clue.” Lisa was proud of thinking of that; it seemed almost Steviean to try to anticipate something sneaky they could do.

“How about we start with the first clue at the stone fence at the edge of the fields,” Carole suggested. “That should be easy enough to draw, right, Lisa?”

“You got it,” Lisa said. She was pretty sure she could draw a stone or brick fence easily enough.

“Let’s trot, then,” Stevie said, taking the path through the fields by the stable, towards the edge of the woods.

It was a pleasantly cool morning, with a light breeze, and Prancer’s ears were pricked forward, alert and interested as she trotted, Lisa posting automatically with the easy motion. Prancer’s trot was smooth and easy, and Lisa could feel how much better her schooling was now, both by the way she kept an even pace even while following two other horses, and by the way that she only flicked an ear in reaction when the wind picked up some fallen leaves and sent them swirling, rather than jumping the way she would have done when Lisa had first begun riding her.

“Oh no,” Carole said, bringing her hand up to her mouth in a gesture of dismay once they’d stopped beside the stone fence, chunks of slightly irregularly sized granite piled up in a four-foot fence to separate the pasture for grazing from the neighboring farmer’s land. “I meant to track how many strides this was from the stable.”

“We can count on the way back?” Lisa said. “At least one of the three of us should remember.”

“And anything we miss now we can check during the week,” Stevie said, although Lisa privately suspected they might have enough to do during the week without giving themselves extra work.

She’d stayed up late the night before to make the flyer on her mother’s computer, and she was happy enough with how it looked, but it seemed to have taken a good hour or two longer than she had expected. As a result, she was feeling more than a little tired that morning. And they’d still have school, and Lisa didn’t want to fall behind on any of her assignments, which meant she’d need to set aside homework time as well as time in the stables. Her fingers were itching to start setting out a new To Do list with everything she’d need to cover through the week just in case she forgot something, so Lisa signalled Prancer to stand still, letting her stretch out her neck and relax while she dug the notebook and pencil out of her pocket to start making notes.

_ Step 1: Stable to Fence _ , Lisa wrote.  _ Distance: ? Strides/ time. _

She wrote and underlined  _ Clue _ under that, but left it blank for the moment. They could figure out the exact clues later if nothing obvious sprang to mind, that was something they could think about while they were back at the stable, or even at home or in study hall — or, in Stevie’s case, Lisa thought ruefully, probably in class, too.

Stevie had Belle collected and standing perfectly evenly, all four of her hooves lined up like she was making a perfect dressage halt — Stevie liked to practice some of the small touches that could be important in the dressage arena when she could, and it was good for both her and Belle, too. Not that she didn’t also enjoy taking lazy, laid-back trail rides on occasion, too. She was looking around the area by the fence as if she’d never seen it before, rather than riding past it probably a hundred times since she’d started riding at Pine Hollow. It was important to set the scene well, so Stevie hoped inspiration would strike to give them a good idea for a clue, or for the next destination.

Inspiration  _ did _ strike, a moment later, but not quite in the way she would have expected.

The stone fence marked one of the boundaries of Max’s land, and some of the ponies were in the field grazing, the ones who weren’t going to be ridden that day, and thus hadn’t been brought in that morning by Max or Red, his head stable hand.  Just as Stevie was wondering what a suitably piratical theme for a stone fence could be, Patch — a piebald gelding who was one of the horses the younger or beginning riders usually started with — wandered closer to the fence, his eye clearly on a patch of grass which looked greener or sweeter, head low as he cropped at it with his teeth.

“Aw, hi, Patch,” Carole said automatically, dismounting from Starlight and walking over to say hello to the piebald.

“Hi, Patch,” Lisa echoed, and Stevie sat upright. Belle also reacted to her rider’s change in posture, shifting her weight and clearly ready for any instruction Stevie was about to give her.

“Carole, you’re a genius,” she breathed, and Lisa and Carole both turned to give her identically confused looks. “Hi, Patch,” she repeated, and when Lisa gave her a ‘go on’ gesture, she went on to say, “Hi Patch.  _ Eye Patch _ .”

“Oh!” Carole said, getting it. It was a pretty silly pun, but she could see how Stevie had got there.

“We can’t really depend on Patch being in this field on Saturday, though,” Lisa pointed out. “I think Alec might be riding him for the Horse Wise meeting that day, actually. He’s still on Patch, right?” and she turned to Carole to check, since Carole could usually be relied upon to remember every detail of which rider was currently spending the most time on which horse. Even though Carole had had Starlight for several years now, and therefore hadn’t ridden any of the stable horses except when he’d been sick, or if Max had needed help exercising them over winter, she still kept track of that.

“No,” Stevie said, letting the sound draw out. “But I bet we can attach a clue to his saddle somehow, so that we can go from one part of the treasure hunt to the next part.”

Stevie considered and immediately discarded the idea of taping an envelope to the underside of the saddle flaps. For one thing, it might come loose and get lost, and for another, even though it wouldn’t bother Patch — that part of the saddle would only touch the rider, not the horse — even Alec, as a fairly new rider, could hardly miss seeing an envelope taped right next to his stirrup leathers when he was tacking up. And they obviously couldn’t tuck anything under the saddle blanket, because then it might bother Patch. But it was too good a joke to not use, so Stevie decided she could figure out the exact mechanics later, and asked Lisa to just write down the idea.

“Where to next?” Lisa asked, as Carole mounted up again, and the horses were clearly beginning to get restless after standing for a few minutes.

“The creek?” Carole suggested. “I thought maybe we could put a message in a bottle — like in the old movies — and tie it to a tree so it doesn’t float off.”

“That’s a great idea,” Stevie said, impressed. “I love it. Do you know where we can get a bottle?”

“I’m sure my dad has one we can use,” Carole said. “Or yours or Lisa’s parents.”

“Great,” Lisa said, writing that down. “Let’s go double-check the creek area, and make sure there’s a tree close enough.” She was pretty certain there was one, but it would be terrible to go to set up on Saturday and find out there wasn’t one. Which made her think of something else they hadn’t planned yet.

“When are we going to set all of this up?” she asked. “I think we should put the clues out the morning before the Horse Wise meeting, otherwise someone else might find them first, or they could get damaged by the weather if it rains or something.”

“I’ve got it,” Stevie said, snapping her fingers. “Sleepover at my house on Friday. We can cover anything we think of at the last minute, and then we’re all close first thing in the morning. We can get up at dawn and do all the setup!”

Stevie sounded more enthusiastic about the idea of getting up at dawn then than she ever did when it actually came to the very early hours of the morning, but Lisa couldn’t deny that they had had some great adventures first thing in the morning — going on pre-dawn bareback rides with their friends Kate Devine and Christine Lonetree out west near the Rocky Mountains came to mind immediately. Lisa kind of liked the idea of getting some of that magic feeling attached to the treasure hunt.

“So long as my parents agree, that’s a great idea,” Lisa said, and Carole nodded and said, “Same here.”

“Let’s go,” Stevie said, and she lead the way down the trail to the creek. They trotted again, and cantered along the part of the trail where it was safe to do so, enjoying the speed and freedom of moving faster.

Belle snorted as if she agreed, and lengthened her stride, covering the ground a little bit faster without actually breaking into a gallop. Stevie could hear the pattern of Starlight and Prancer’s hooves hitting the ground behind her, could tell that they were cantering easily as well, and she grinned to herself, perfectly content to be with her horse and her best friends, and scheming happily.

The three girls spent the next hour tweaking the route Carole had thought up when considering all the skill levels of the riders in Horse Wise, making sure that it was possible to get from each point to the point before and after it easily, and Carole used the compass her dad had loaned her so that Lisa could write down the cardinal directions as well.

They picked three other places to leave clues, all of them only fifteen or so minutes away from the stable if they rode directly, which would mean firstly that they could set the clues out without it taking too much time — no one was allowed to ride by themselves, so they couldn’t split up even to set them out, not without getting at least one other rider to help so they could work in pairs — and also that if there were any problems, or a sudden thunderstorm or something like that, then everyone would be able to get back safely and quickly.

By the time they were riding back to Pine Hollow — taking a more direct route which let them jump over a couple of the fences they were allowed to, and one which the treasure hunt would definitely not be following — Carole was feeling a strong sense of satisfaction. They had a plan, and now all they had to do was make up the clues and draw up the map. This was going to be such a fun party!

That feeling carried over for the rest of the day, even through cleaning their tack, and helping Mrs Reg rearrange some of the spare tack, and even through to shifting the wheelbarrow of manure, which was a stable chore that not even Carole really enjoyed.

* * *

_ Q: How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator? _

_ A: Three sets of footprints in the peanut butter. _

* * *

Lisa had started riding to please her mother, who thought a well brought up young lady should be able to do ballet, paint with watercolors, ride a horse, play piano, and all manner of other time-consuming hobbies that Lisa had learned in after-school and weekend lessons. 

Lisa had quickly fallen in love with riding, found that she had a natural talent for it, and was horse-crazy enough to also put in the time and effort to learn everything she could. That was not quite what her mother had been expecting, but over the years Lisa had stood up to her mother enough that she had slowly been allowed to drop most of the other after-school activities that took up time she could be riding. She still took acting lessons occasionally, as she also loved that, and had been going to photography classes on and off over the years, but thankfully now the only thing Lisa ‘had’ to do after school regularly was her homework.

She was an organized and practical student, which meant she paid attention in class and took good notes, and that also meant that her homework did not take too much time if she sat down to work on it as soon as she got home. Pushing away her biology textbook as she finished up the discussion question on photosynthesis, Lisa stretched at her desk, and realized happily that now she could turn all over her attention to planning the treasure map.

Lisa flipped to the back of the notebook she’d used to take notes the day before, and started sketching out a rough map on a large piece of drawing paper.

She put squares to represent the stable, the creek, and the old oak tree which had been struck by lightning once at three of the points of the paper, and then set her pencil down again, thinking. The oak was the furthest point from the stable, so that should be diagonally opposite it, but they’d also be riding partway along the trail that went near the highway. They’d decided not to go too far down that trail, just in case a large truck came past that could potentially spook some of the jumpier horses, but maybe she should still draw it in, just to make the boundaries clearer…

Lisa picked up the pencil, sketched the road along one edge, and then frowned, picking up the eraser. It didn’t quite look right. And it might make the riders think they had to go all the way to the edge of the highway, which wasn’t at all what they wanted.

It was probably best to just draw the five points where they’d stop to find clues, she decided, and set those out on the paper, referring back to her notes to make sure the points where they’d ridden north or south were also up or down on the map, and that she had a note of approximately how long they had to ride each leg of the map.

They hadn’t ended up counting strides for distance the day before; it had been too complicated and even Carole had lost count after thirty or so, so they’d chosen to just use the minute hands on their watches and trust the horses and riders to keep a steady pace and to be sharp-eyed enough to find the clues.

By the time Lisa’s mother called her downstairs for dinner, she had a rough map drawn up, and a good idea of what she wanted it to look like once she’d drawn it more carefully. She’d also found the stamp set Carole had given her for her last birthday, and had decided to use the hoof-print stamp to mark the winding trails between each point on the map — it would look much horsier that way, she decided with a satisfied smile.

After dinner, Lisa went back to work on the map, drawing a cartoony version of the stable building, and of the tree, the trunk dramatically forked partway up. She sketched out enough space to put the stone fence in, but that would be easy enough to draw later. She’d just need her ruler.

It was probably time to check in with the rest of the Saddle Club, she thought, and picked up the handset of the phone in her bedroom.

Stevie’s twin brother Alex answered the phone at the Lake’s house, and as soon as Lisa had spoken he just dropped the phone and bellowed, “Stevie! Phone!” before thumping off up the stairs. 

This wasn’t unusual, so Lisa just waited until she heard the second set of thumps that was Stevie coming down the stairs, with a pause before she picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Hey, Stevie!” Lisa said, “How was your day?”

“Ugh,” Stevie said with great feeling. “I had a small problem.”

“Oh no,” Lisa said. “School?” 

Stevie’s casual attitude to both homework and pop quizzes got her in trouble sometimes, although far more often the problem was the pranks she came up with to keep herself and her classmates at Fenton Hall entertained. Lisa privately suspected that her headmistress had to appreciate something about Stevie’s sense of humor, because she didn’t think someone who couldn’t see the funny side would simultaneously have Stevie in charge of school dance decoration committees AND on detention for somehow arranging to fly a pair of the school football team pants from the flagpole.

“I was just showing school spirit!” Stevie had protested at the time, unfortunately before remembering that until she admitted that, there wasn’t actually any evidence she was behind that plan.

“Nope,” Stevie said darkly. “My mom. Apparently my room has to be  _ sparkling _ clean by Friday or not only is there no sleepover, there’s no Horse Wise meeting.”

“Oh no,” Lisa gasped. “This definitely calls for a Saddle Club meeting.”

Stevie’s parents were both lawyers, and that meant they had three-way calling, which they used for their business calls, but was also a perfect solution to Saddle Club meetings when they couldn’t actually see each other face-to-face, or at the stable. Carole and Lisa did both go to Willow Creek’s local high school, but Lisa was a grade ahead, and she and Carole hadn’t had the same lunch period since last year, which meant it was almost as hard for the two of them to see each other except in passing.

Stevie called Carole while Lisa waited, and after several long moments where the phone rang and rang eventually Carole answered, sounding a little breathless.

“Dad’s not home yet, and I just got back from Pine Hollow,” Carole explained. “What’s up?”

Stevie explained the situation with her parents, and Carole groaned as well. Stevie’s room was a constant battleground between her and her parents, and this was not the first time they’d threatened effectively to ground her if she didn’t keep it neater. Carole and Lisa had helped her clean up more than once, but the last time she’d promised to keep it cleaner herself, feeling like she should be more responsible since the Saddle Club had spent a lot more time getting her out of scrapes like that than they had for Carole or Lisa.

“I can help you clean on Thursday, maybe?” Lisa offered. She did have extra classes on Wednesday, and they had to finish getting the treasure hunt clues set up.

“No,” Stevie said, and Lisa blinked, surprised. “I think I can do it all myself, but— um. Could you or Carole exercise Belle tomorrow? Then I can spend extra time on my room, and you guys are still helping me, but you also get to have a bit more fun than just doing laundry in my basement or trying to work out where all this junk actually goes.”

“Of course we can,” Carole hurried to assure her. “And we’ll still help you if you’re not done then.”

“I’ll be done,” Stevie said. “I’m going to change, I promised!”

“Don’t change too much,” Lisa said. Stevie was kind of disorganized, sure, and sometimes Lisa found that frustrating, but it was also who she was, and Lisa loved Stevie and Carole just the way they were. It would be too weird to contemplate if Stevie turned over a new leaf entirely!

“No fear there,” Stevie said. There was an undercurrent of amusement in her voice which was both wholly familiar, and a little worrying. “The other thing that burst out of my closet today when my mom tried to put some of my laundry away was half of Michael’s rock collection, so he will also be helping me. By getting half of his junk back into his own room.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t notice until now,” Carole said.

“All I noticed was whether I could shut the closet door,” Stevie admitted. “All my riding clothes were piled on the end of my bed so I didn’t realize Alex had ‘helpfully’ put all the stuff that was under Michael’s bed in there as well.” Stevie and her brother all tended to play pranks on each other regularly, and it didn’t surprise Lisa at all that one or more of them had been involved in getting her in trouble this time. She returned the favor regularly, of course.

“We need to do some more work on the treasure hunt, though,” Lisa reminded the other two. That had been why she’d called in the first place. “Do either of you have any ideas for the clues yet?”

“Oh!” Stevie said, reminded. “I thought of some at school today. And before Mom yelled at me about my room, she also said we could have the empty bottles from that fancy mineral water they give clients at her law firm. Do you think those will work?”

“That’s perfect,” Carole said. “They’re plastic, right? Then we don’t have to worry about any of them breaking if someone drops them or if the horses stand on them.”

“And the one we tie to the creek will float,” Lisa added. “That’s definitely better than glass. We’ll just have to make sure they’re totally dry so the clues don’t disintegrate.”

“I can do that,” Stevie said, eyeing her boot hooks. She could definitely hang a plastic bottle upside down on those until it dried out.

“I had an idea about your Patch clue,” Carole said. “What if we make that the last clue, and stick it up in his stall? Then it can be the clue that tells the riders to look in the feed shed, and if we put it up high, Alec won’t see it when he tacks up.”

“We just have to tell Red to leave it there,” Lisa agreed. “That’s a great idea.”

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Stevie said happily.

“We still need the other clues,” Lisa reminded her, the point of her pencil hovering over them. “I want to double-check we wrote the direction of the leg from the tree back to the mailbox down right.”

“Oh— oh no,” Carole said, distress clear in her tone all of a sudden.

“Carole?” Lisa said, and Stevie waited for Carole to answer.

“I just remembered,” Carole said, sounding like she was holding back tears. “Dad loaned me his compass, and— I haven’t seen it since we were riding yesterday. I didn’t have it when I got home, but I didn’t realize until just now. It was my grandfather’s, how could I have lost it?”

“We’ll find it,” Stevie said firmly, and Lisa agreed quickly. “Maybe it’s just on Mrs Reg’s desk,” she added. “If you left it in the tack room or one of the stalls then they wouldn’t have known whose it was. You can ask her as soon as you get there tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Carole said, but she still sounded subdued, and Stevie knew that she wouldn’t feel better until she had the compass back. She was even more determined then to get her room up to her mother’s standards as fast as possible so she could help look for it. If it wasn’t sitting with the other Lost and Found items, that was. 

“Okay,” Stevie said, “I’m going to go start on my room. And, um, finish my homework.”

“I’ll do some more work on the map,” Lisa said, and “I’ll think about the clues some more,” Carole said, but it didn’t sound like her heart was totally in it. Stevie couldn’t blame her.

* * *

Carole felt as if she was sleepwalking through her classes at school the next day. She saw Lisa between third and fourth period, racing the opposite way down the hall in the science building, and Lisa even stopped to give her a quick hug, but other than that, she didn’t feel fully herself until she was turning down the drive to Pine Hollow after school.

Normally she’d go see Starlight straight away, but she knew seeing the compass safely on Mrs Reg’s desk would help her relax a lot more.

And it would have, if it had been there.

“I’m sorry, Carole,” Mrs Reg said, looking concerned. She cared about all of the young riders a lot, but had also spent a lot of time with Carole since her mother had died when she was 11, and Carole couldn’t deny that Mrs Reg’s approval — and her support — had meant a lot to her over the years. “No one’s handed it in, and I’m sure if it was in the tack room or by Starlight’s stall then Max or Red would have seen it.”

“Oh,” Carole said, feeling her heart sink. “I guess— we’ll have to check where we were riding, then.”

“At least it hasn’t rained or anything like that,” Mrs Reg said.

“Right,” Carole said, but she knew she’d have to tell the Colonel that night, just in case she couldn’t find it. She hated the idea that he’d be disappointed in her for losing it, but she knew he’d rather that she tell him then than try to hide it.

She took Starlight into the indoor ring for some schooling on the longe line — it would be good for him, and would also mean that she could work with him, and then ride Belle while Lisa rode Prancer, and they could check the last few points where they’d ridden on the weekend to see if they could find the compass.

Carole was just finishing up with Starlight when Lisa arrived. She’d gone home to change first, while Carole had come straight from school, her riding clothes stuffed into the top of her backpack on top of her textbooks.

“Any luck?” Lisa asked sympathetically, although she could probably tell from Carole’s face that the compass wasn’t there. Carole hadn’t cried, but she could feel the tears threatening all the same, pricking at the corners of her eyes.

“No,” Carole said, a little shakily. “I’m just going to finish working with Starlight here, and then I thought we could take Belle and Prancer out on a quick trail ride?”

“Sounds good,” Lisa said, seeming to grasp without Carole having to say that they’d be covering some of the same ground. “I’ll go start getting them both ready, just catch up whenever you and Starlight are done.”

“Great, thanks,” Carole said, and then clucked her tongue to get Starlight to trot again, focusing on his movements.

* * *

Lisa and Carole had what would normally have been quite a nice ride, out along the shorter trail that joined up several of the long trails through the woods; out to the lightning-struck tree, back along the hunting trail, and up to the mailbox at the top of the driveway, but despite Carole and Lisa both dismounting and taking turns looking carefully at the ground while the other held both horses, they hadn’t been able to find the compass.

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said again, helping Carole bring down some fresh straw for Belle’s stall. “I just keep hoping it’ll turn up, or one of the other riders who’s been here through the week has found it and just not remembered to hand it in yet.”

“I guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Carole said, “But I think it’s gone.”

She tried to put a good face on, but felt her lip tremble all the same, and Lisa put the pitchfork down — carefully — in a hurry and came over to hug her tightly. It took a few minutes but eventually Carole got herself under control again, and murmured, “Thanks, Lisa.”

“I’ll see you Friday if not sooner,” Lisa promised, when they said goodbye on their way out of the stable shortly afterward. Lisa was going to walk home, while Carole headed across to the bus stop by the shopping mall. “Call me or Stevie if you need to.”

“You bet,” Carole said, and trudged over to the bus stop, not looking forward to her evening.

Colonel Hanson took the news of the missing compass better than Carole would quite have hoped, but he still looked a little sad as he reassured her that these things happened sometimes, and he didn’t blame her. 

They had a quiet evening making dinner together after that, and then watching a movie with a bowl of popcorn between them on the couch, but Carole couldn’t even enjoy the original Godzilla as much as she usually did, so she said goodnight and went to bed early. If she cried a little before falling asleep, well, the model horses lined up on her desk weren’t going to tell anyone.

* * *

Stevie had managed to make more progress in cleaning her room than she had expected even in her most optimistic plans. Dumping everything that didn’t actually belong to her into laundry baskets and hauling those into Michael’s room — and piling it up on his bed — hadn’t taken long at all. It turned out that once she pulled all the things in her closet that didn’t belong there out again, there was actually room to move the clothes piled up all over her floor in there. A couple of her winter coats could go downstairs into the family coat closet, and straightening up her boots into pairs instead of a jumbled mess somehow meant that they all fit, too, instead of spilling out in front of her dresser.

Books and some older toys and models — plus the model airplane she’d meant to fix and never got around to — fit in boxes and on her bookshelves, and when she made a pile of books on her desk as well, they actually looked almost respectable. Her desk was a mess of papers and half-finished projects and homework, and that almost took longer than everything else, having to sit down and check whether she still needed any of them or if she could throw them out, but once she’d paged through three separate piles the top of the desk was almost clear, too. And she’d found a library book that would cost a couple of dollars in late fines, but that would be significantly cheaper than paying to replace it, so on the whole, Stevie was pretty thrilled with her afternoon’s accomplishments.

Her mom and dad were also happy when they got home from work and checked up on her, and Stevie had permission almost immediately to have Lisa and Carole sleep over the night before the treasure hunt.

“There’s even space for them to sleep, now!” her dad said, chuckling, and Stevie rolled her eyes. She had no idea why people insisted she’d inherited her sense of humor from her mom and dad.

Stevie sat down at her newly clean desk to finish off her homework, while she was feeling virtuous and motivated, and she’d just moved on to a snack of apples spread with peanut butter, alternating the crunch of the apples with chewing on the end of her pen as she considered the options for each of the clues she was working on for the treasure hunt. She’d decided she wanted them to rhyme like on a real treasure map, if she could manage it, but that was pretty difficult and she’d got one and a half clues done before getting stuck.

The phone ringing was a great interruption, and she’d even beaten her brothers to answering it for once. She was hoping it was Lisa or Carole or her boyfriend Phil, but Phil had a pretty big science project due that week, so she wasn’t really expecting to hear from him until he’d finished that.

It turned out to be Lisa, and Stevie tucked her feet under herself while she sat down by the phone in the hall, keeping a weather eye out for any approaching brothers. They all seemed to be busy with their own work, which was a small and rare mercy.

“…so we didn’t find the compass,” Lisa finished. “Carole’s pretty upset.”

“Oh, no,” Stevie said. She knew how close Carole and her father were, and anything that had family history and memories attached was going to be even more important to both of them. 

“We’re going to find it,” she said, determined. So maybe Carole and Lisa hadn’t been able to that afternoon. But with all three of them… the Saddle Club had never failed when they really put their minds to anything, and this was not, Stevie decided, going to be the first time. “Even if we have to comb every inch of the woods,” she added.

“I guess,” Lisa said. She sounded a little dubious. That was okay, Stevie would have enough faith for both of them.

“Anyway,” Stevie went on, “In other news, guess who has permission for a sleepover on Friday?”

Lisa cheered, and then pretended that she wasn’t sure who Stevie was talking about, but it was obvious she was pleased — and also obvious that she was a little relieved not to have to tackle cleaning Stevie’s room for the umpteenth time. Lisa’s room was always neat and tidy, but Stevie couldn’t imagine managing to live like that all of the time. She’d go nuts. But being a little neater was probably a good thing to aim for.

“I have some of the clues figured out, too,” Stevie said proudly, and read them out to Lisa. Lisa cracked up laughing at them, just as Stevie had hoped, so they were absolutely on track there, too.

Everything was going to be just fine, Stevie thought, after she’d said goodbye to Lisa, and she dug out the copy of  _ My Friend Flicka _ she was reading for the tenth time, and curled up in her bed with that.

A muffled shriek later, she’d got up, flung the creepy gel-filled sticky fake snake that Chad had hidden under her pillow back into his room, and picked up  _ Flicka _ again. After that, nothing interrupted Stevie’s concentration as she imagined herself far away in Wyoming, nursing an injured filly back to health.

* * *

The rest of the school week seemed to drag on interminably, or so it seemed to Lisa. She normally enjoyed school, so she couldn’t even imagine how it must feel for Stevie and Carole. They checked in with each other using the Lake’s three-way calling plan most nights if they didn’t see each other at Pine Hollow.

Carole had been entrusted with Lisa and Stevie’s pocket money, and stopped by the Saddlery after school to pick up the hoof-picks for the special prizes. She had also spent some time going through their Pony Club notebooks to make sure she had questions prepared for each of the three levels of riders, and had tested them against Lisa and Stevie over the phone. They’d both passed with flying colors, of course.

Stevie had made up the clue bottles to hide at each of their treasure map points, once she’d settled on the clue phrases, and she and Lisa and worked together to make sure the map and the clues matched each other. Once they were sure everything looked all right, Lisa coated the ‘map’ with lemon juice, and then carefully ironed over the paper to make certain it looked old and a little worn.

“That looks so cool,” Stevie said, when Lisa showed her, and then she’d asked Lisa to tell her how she’d done it so that Stevie could copy the same method for the clues. She only had to rewrite one of them after accidentally ironing it a bit too long.

“I think we’re all set,” Lisa said happily after they met at Pine Hollow on Friday afternoon, and sat down in the locker rooms to pull on their riding boots. She’d gone through her notebook again to check, and every item on the checklist had a neat tick beside it, the hoof-picks and chocolate coins were tucked in the back of her locker ready for tomorrow, and they had permission from Max to ride out early the next morning to plant all of the clues.

“This might be our best work yet,” Stevie agreed, with some satisfaction.

“We’ve certainly worked hard on it,” Carole said, smoothing her hands over her breeches to make sure they were unwrinkled, and not bunching up under her high boots. Stevie and Lisa had chosen to just ride in short boots that day, so had a much easier time getting them on with their jodhpurs.

“Let’s go check the hay barn one last time,” Stevie suggested, and so the three of them trooped over there — stopping on the way to say hi and pet each of the horses they passed, of course.

Max and Red had pulled down some extra hay from the loft on Stevie’s request, and the Saddle Club had moved some of the bales along the walls of the shed to act as seats and places for people to rest their plates during the party. That wasn’t anything unusual; every party they’d had at Pine Hollow had used the same arrangements — although the color of the crepe paper they hung around the walls and on the corners tended to change based on the event. 

They had also arranged five hay bales in the center of the room, three in a diagonal line and one either side at right angles. It was decidedly an X-sort of shape, if you looked at it from above, but Lisa didn’t think anyone would guess until they got the clues that it was more than just an extra set of ‘seats’.

The plan they came up with the night before gave the Saddle Club time for a quick hack, and then once they were done at the stable they would head back to Stevie’s place for dinner.

“I have an idea for our ride today,” Carole said when they were back in the tack room after they’d groomed their horses, collecting saddles and bridles before tacking up. “Instead of riding out to the point and back, let’s follow the map and check that all the times work out.”

She didn’t say that it would be pretty embarrassing for all of them if they  _ didn’t _ tomorrow, but they could all guess that. And Max would be unimpressed if their ‘short’ ride after Horse Wise turned into a long trail ride and made them all late for the parents who would be meeting them back at the stable either to join in the party or to pick them up and take them home afterward.

“Good call,” Lisa said, and went back to her backpack, digging out the map, which she’d kept carefully protected inside a slim plastic folder.

“We can pretend we’ve never seen it before,” Stevie said, “And then we’ll know if we need to change anything tonight.”

Lisa hoped that they wouldn’t; the map looked pretty good to her, and she had a feeling that the more work they had to do that night, the less sleep they’d be getting.

Tacking up Prancer, Starlight and Belle didn’t take long, and Lisa tapped the map — curled up and tied with a red ribbon she’d found in her drawers, with the memory of learning in history class about where ‘red tape’ came from — against the good luck horseshoe as well.

“It can’t hurt to get a little extra luck, right?” she said, and Carole and Stevie nodded agreement.

“Synchronize watches,” Stevie said, with dramatic flare, and all three of them checked the time. 

Lisa grabbed a pen from her shirt pocket and just wrote it down on the back of her hand — if everything went well they wouldn’t need any other notes, so no sense in getting her notebook out just for that.

“Now, to the ‘rocky shore’,” Lisa read from the map, carefully sitting deep in Prancer’s saddle to keep her standing still. “Or, in Stevie’s words,  _ Travel ye north, to the ‘rocky shore’, five minutes to walk, and then two more _ .”

“I hope you’re getting an A in English this year,” Carole said, giggling at Stevie’s attempt at poetry.

“I hope Mrs Korpikoski agrees with you,” Stevie replied, and after she’d waited for Lisa to roll the map back up and stuff it into the saddlebag clipped behind her leg, she added, “Hi-ho Silver!”

“I think that still works on bays, right?” Lisa said, tightening her legs to tell Prancer to start walking on the northernmost trail.

They completed the circuit in well under an hour, being careful to stick to the gaits they’d specified in the clues, even though they could have trotted or cantered more once the horses were warmed up if they’d been trail-riding rather than following the map. The mailbox at the top of the drive was the last checkpoint — other than the stable — so when Lisa checked her watch then and announced that they were exactly on time all three of them cheered. Belle shied a little at the sound, but Stevie kept her seat easily, using her hands and legs to reassure and steady her.

Once they were done with everything they needed to do at the stable they collected their backpacks and headed to the Lake house. Mr Lake made his famous lasagna for dinner, in the usual enormous portions, which made dinner a raucous and lively affair, as not just Carole and Lisa but also a couple of Chad and Michael’s friends turned up to fill up the kitchen table and spill over into the picnic table outside by their pool.

Chad was stuck with dishes duty that night — “All part of my plan!” Stevie said gleefully, as she piled up their plates beside the sink for him — so the three girls were free to go straight up to Stevie’s room with a plate of cookies and time to giggle and gossip before curling up in sleeping bags in Stevie’s room with their alarms set bright and early.

Stevie’s mom checked in on them to remind them not to stay up all night talking, which they had to admit was frequently deserved — this wasn’t Stevie’s parents’ first rodeo, so to speak. They all knew how much they had to do the next day though, and were happy enough to bed down with the lights off and go to sleep before midnight for a change.

* * *

Their alarms seemed to go off all too early the next morning, and even Carole struggled at first to peel herself out of her sleeping bag. Quick showers in the downstairs bathroom woke them up, and after grabbing Pop-Tarts from the toaster, they let themselves out of the house just as the sun was coming up.

It was early enough that Red hadn’t brought in any of the horses that had been turned out overnight yet. Lisa and Stevie grabbed halters and vaulted the fence into the field by the barn, using a combination of soft voices, their experience in cutting cattle on the Bar None ranch and — Stevie wasn’t too proud to admit — a couple of bribes of carrot pieces to get Starlight, Prancer and Belle over to the gate, and to get halters and lead ropes on them.

Early mornings were their favorite times to take bareback rides when they were visiting Kate and Christine out west, too, and Stevie felt a moment’s regret that they wouldn’t be able to do that in the morning. They didn’t often ride bareback at Pine Hollow, as saddles were generally better for the horses’ backs — as well as more comfortable for their riders’ seats. Riding bareback gave riders a chance to really be able to move with their mounts, and they all enjoyed being able to feel so close to their horses.

“Maybe next time we can ask Max if we can do a bareback ride at dawn here,” she said to Lisa as they closed the gate behind them, shooing away a too-curious Barq before he could follow them.

“The view won’t be quite as good as out west,” Lisa said, “But that would still be fun, yeah.”

Pine Hollow was quiet in the early morning, the only sounds bird calls and the sound of horses cropping at grass occasionally, plus the quiet hum of traffic on the highway, although that was far enough away that they could only just hear it. The low light left everything looking just a little washed out, softer than usual, and while it was certainly not as dramatic as a sunrise in the Rockies, it was still pretty enough, the soft green of the woods and the neatly painted white fences and red barn.

All three of their horses spent almost as much time together as the Saddle Club did, so they were well behaved as Lisa and Stevie walked them through to their stalls in a group, dark brown coats glowing under the stable lights, hooves clip-clopping on the concrete under the straw. Prancer snorted a little as Stevie backed her into her stall, but settled down as Lisa clipped the door shut, making sure Prancer couldn’t get at the latch to slide it open as she had learned to do. Starlight mimicked her, just as if he was copying the cool new kid at school, and both he and Belle nickered eagerly as the girls doled out their morning feed once they were all in their stalls.

“I think Starlight’s as excited for that grain as I was for the cherry Pop-Tarts,” Stevie joked to Carole as she wheeled the barrow full of dirty straw back down the aisle. Carole was the quickest of the three of them at mucking out stalls, and she’d wanted to get a start on Starlight’s while the other two brought the horses in and started to groom them.

They split off again after they’d finished their breakfasts and given the horses enough time to digest. Stevie had just said that she had a new, better idea than the ‘eye patch’ clue they’d been planning to tape into Patch’s stall, but that it would also take a little bit more time. 

Carole and Lisa just shrugged and let her get on with it — Stevie’s wild plans usually paid off, and while sometimes she did get in over her head, it seemed unlikely this time. She did always ask for help if she needed it, anyway. Eventually.

Lisa and Carole were quite happy to get to ride out to stash all the clues, anyway. The air was crisp and clear, and it was lovely and peaceful to trot along the familiar trails, the bag of clues tied on to the back of Carole’s saddle. They took turns in dismounting and hiding the clues, putting one in some brush, but right by a tree that Carole was pretty sure she’d remember if they struggled to find it later. The clue for the stone fence they just tucked into a niche between two of the stones, jammed in place so it couldn’t fall over. It was going to be very easy to find, but they thought that was all to the best for the first clue, so that the Pony Clubbers would know exactly what to look for the rest of the way.

The bottle bobbing in the creek was a two-person effort, and they ground-tied Starlight and Prancer before tying the twine Stevie had grabbed out of her parents junk drawer around the neck. Carole fumbled the bottle as she went to place it in the creek, and felt it start to slide out of her grip, catching in the current and floating merrily downstream. She and Lisa both dived for the trailing end of the twine before it could go out of sight.

“Lucky it hasn’t rained all week,” Lisa said, laughing self-deprecatingly. “Or one of us might have had to jump into the creek after it, if the current was any faster.”

“Lesson learned,” Carole agreed. “Next time, tie the other end around the tree  _ first _ .”

* * *

It didn’t take much longer for them to set out the other clues that they were responsible for, and it was with a feeling of well-earned accomplishment that they returned to the stable. From there, they moved on to grooming, mucking out, and doing the thousand and one other little things that needed doing around horses every day.

The other Pony Clubbers started to turn up at the stables shortly after that, doing their own stable chores for the ones who rode stable horses, or who boarded their horses there. Not long after that, there was the rumble of a trailer in the drive as a couple of the Pony Clubbers who had their own horses but didn’t stable them with Max regularly arrived, and unloaded their horses and ponies from their floats.

The number of people in the stable seemed to quadruple all of a sudden, and so did the noise level, which of course got some of the more highly strung horses excited.

Max strode out of his office to remind them all not to run or shout in the stable, although even he pretended not to notice the way Jasmine James and Alec Farley both froze guiltily on the spot, having been moving significantly faster than was strictly allowed in their haste to get from the tack room back to their ponies.

Their Horse Wise meeting was meant to start early in the afternoon, right after lunch. With Max in charge, that meant they started right on the dot of noon, with stern looks at anyone who’d dawdled and made their way into the ring late.

As it was a mounted meeting, Max simply welcomed them all, reminded them about the party and ‘special event’ later, and then moved straight on to the lesson for the day. Pony Club activities were generally a split between general horsemanship, riding on the flat, and riding over fences. This meeting was scheduled to be focused on the latter, so Max guided them through a jumping class in the indoor ring, paying particular attention to what they'd need to know for their next certifications.

The majority of the riders were either D-1 or D-2, and looking to move up a step, but there were a few newer riders who were unrated, but had just started to jump. Some of the more experienced riders were looking to improve their C-1 and C-2 ratings, though, so Max was careful to tailor his comments to their experience levels as usual.

Once Max gave the signal that they were done with the formal part of their meeting, there was a noticeable hum of excitement as the riders collected in the middle of the ring and awaited further instructions. Lisa's flyer had told them there would be a 'special trail ride' with a piratical theme before the party, but had given no other details.

Stevie came back into the ring then, after ducking out undetected late in Max’s lesson in order to make a suitably dramatic entrance. Carole and Lisa had to laugh because in an extra touch she hadn't told even them about, she was wearing a riding coat with gold braid and what looked like Navy epaulettes. 

She was brandishing the map — tied up with ribbons and dusted with glitter that Lisa suspected was going to also be in the rug in Stevie’s room for the next year or so until she could hoover it out of every crack in the floorboards where they’d spilled it — and had a plastic cutlass tied to the leg of her breeches. A pirate hat that they both recognized from several years' worth of Lake family Hallowe'en costumes was jammed over top of her riding helmet, the feather in the peak drooping precariously by the corner of her eye. Stevie started to speak in her best piratical tones, completely at odds with the calm and collected manner that Belle was walking, although her ears were twitching back regularly as if she, too, was interested in what her rider was telling them.

“Ahoy, mateys,” Stevie cried. "Before the feasting and celebrations, we have a quest for you! Through danger and hardship-"

"She means we might have to wade through the creek," Lisa whispered to Sarah, one of the younger riders who looked a little scared at Stevie's comment. Stevie cleared her throat significantly, and started again.

"Through  _ danger and hardship _ , you will track down the treasure hidden by the dread Captain, uh, Regnery, and fated to be found by only the bravest and cleverest Pony Clubbers!"

The riders cheered, and then Stevie ceremoniously rode Belle over to hand the map to May Grover. May was the youngest Horse Wise rider, and the one they'd decided could be the honorary captain for this activity, as she was a very good rider for her age, but also young enough that she'd still be excited enough to really get into the spirit of things.

May read out the first clue, and they were off!

The stone fence was quite an easy clue, since there was only one trail that headed directly north of the stable, and Polly Giacomin and Veronica both called that out as an idea at the same time. With much checking of their watches, the Pony Club set off en masse, automatically lining up in good order to ride together, keeping the less experienced riders in the middle where they could follow along, but more experienced riders would be behind them to check that everything was okay.

"Good work, girls," Max said, as Stevie, Carole and Lisa filed out of the ring past him, taking the trailing position so that they could make sure no one got lost — and lend a hand if their clues were harder than they'd thought they would be.

From there, the riders followed Stevie's clues to the lightning-forked tree, quickly working out that “ _ Ride northwest and tighten your girth; in this place the lightning bolt found its berth,” _ meant they had to double back to the blackened tree, where the bottle with the clue was hiding right in the split where the trunk had come apart.

That clue — where Stevie had managed to rhyme “pirate ship” with “taking a dip” led them on to the creek, where appreciative “Ooh”s greeted the floating message in a bottle. 

Alec dismounted and waded into the creek to collect that bottle, although he needed to borrow Stevie’s pocketknife to cut it free, since the water had swelled the knot enough that he couldn’t untie it. He provided some extra drama to the affair by slipping on a wet rock just as he was on his way back, and splashed water halfway up his breeches and down into his boots.

Luckily, he was quite philosophical about it; “I hope Patch doesn’t mind if I drip on him!” he said, and as he hadn’t even grazed anything or bruised himself, they felt like they’d all gotten off quite lightly. He did take his socks off and put his boots back on barefoot, though, saying it was just too squelchy to try and keep his feet in his stirrups otherwise.

Carole just reminded him to keep his heels down as they rode on, but he seemed otherwise undaunted, his wet socks shoved in the pocket of the windbreaker his mom always insisted he take with him.

From there, the clues led them to the fallen bird’s nest behind a half-rotten log exactly twenty paces down the trail from the creek. Stevie claimed it was a crow’s nest, and that her clue was absolutely perfect, but it looked like a cardinal’s nest to Carole. She kept her mouth shut, though.

That clue actually took the longest to find — Stevie had to be a bit vague since there weren't really any other landmarks, and after a quick discussion half the group had dismounted, handing their reins to the other half, and combed the area on foot.

There was a cry of joy from Simon Atherton then, as he bent over and and then straightened up waving the now-familiar plastic bottle with an age-yellowed scrap of paper for their next clue in it, but about ten seconds later there was another exclamation from Corey Takamura, who shrieked, "I found treasure!" and stood up with something shiny and silver in her hands.

"Carole!" Lisa called, just in case Carole had somehow missed Corey's reaction. "Corey found your compass!"

"Oh my god," Carole said, before swinging her leg over the back of Starlight's saddle and dismounting, racing over to where Corey stood proudly holding the chain and compass. "Corey! You're a lifesaver! Thank you, thank you!"

She and Corey high-fived, a grin a mile wide on the younger girl's face, and Carole carefully tucked the compass back into her pocket where she could keep a hand on it every few minutes for the rest of the ride. They hadn’t explained how it had gotten lost in the first place, but all the riders knew Carole had lost the compass earlier in the week, and they all knew how upset she’d been. Finding the compass made it an almost perfect day already, before they’d even finished their treasure hunt.

That brief interruption only derailed them for a few minutes before they were ready to move on again. The Pony Clubbers had the knack of translating Stevie's clues by that point, quickly realizing that their next spot to 'dig' was the Pine Hollow mailbox.

"Can we canter this part?" May asked, looking to Carole as the most experienced rider in the group.

Carole looked around, looking at the happy, flushed faces of her fellow riders, the way they were all having a good time, and decided that as long as they were all comfortable it was safe enough. It wasn't like they could miss the last clue — Carole had asked Mrs Reg to put it inside the mailbox after they left the stable, just so that no one could find it by accident any earlier.

"Just as far as the edge of the woods," Carole said. "The trail's dry and it's flat. But if anyone doesn't want to canter, fall back and Lisa and I will trot with you."

All of the Pony Clubbers were happy to canter, so the whole cavalcade made their way back to Pine Hollow a little quicker than planned, but with more than enough noise that Carole had no fear of them running into anybody else trying to use the trails. It would be almost impossible not to hear them coming!

The bottle in the mailbox had the clue that was both the easiest to translate, and had required the most work. Stevie had let Carole and Lisa stash the bottles around the trails that morning while she sequestered herself in Topside's stall in a last-minute change of plans.

Topside was an elegant bay gelding who had been a high level eventing horse before his previous owner had suffered an injury and couldn't compete any more. Max had bought him from Dorothy DeSoto then, and had his higher-level riders gain valuable experience in being able to work with such a well-trained horse. Until Stevie had gotten her own horse, she had ridden Topside regularly, and the two of them had competed together both in jumping and in Stevie’s particular interest, dressage. None of the current Pony Clubbers rode Topside, so after he'd been brought in for his morning feed he'd been kept in his stall, waiting there patiently, with his tail wrapped neatly as if he was about to compete in a show.

"This is a weird one," May said, after she read the clue silently to herself, before raising her voice to read it aloud. " _ One more clue and your voyage ends, take this advice from your friends. If you do not wish to fail, 'trim the mane and TOPSail _ '."

"Stevie, that doesn't make any sense," Betsy Cavanaugh complained.

"Wait a minute," Jasmine James said, standing on her tiptoes to look at the clue over May's shoulder. She, May and Jasmine were all best friends, and the three of them had formed a club they called the Pony Tails, looking up to the Saddle Club’s example. "Mane is spelled like a horse's mane, and the first couple of letters of topsail look different... T, O, P, S—"

"I bet that's for Topside!" Veronica cried, forgetting in the excitement of the moment that she didn't want to look like she was having any fun following the Saddle Club's map.

"We should go check Topside's stall," May agreed, and then Carole spoke up.

"Actually, this is where we all stop to groom our horses first. This is the last part of the horseback section of your treasure hunt. Max gave us permission to leave cleaning the tack until later, though, so you don't have quite as much to do as normal before we meet outside Topside's stall."

There was another cheer at that news, and the riders turned their horses back up the drive and toward the stable. Naturally, with the stable in sight, all of the horses were quite happy to take that direction, and several of the riders had to struggle more than a little in making sure they kept to a walk to cool down their horses, instead of letting them race back to their stalls.

“Oh no,” Carole hissed, her eyes going wide as she grabbed at Lisa and Stevie to get them to wait with her while the other riders peeled off toward the stable. “I just realized — we never did any of the knowdown questions!” She pulled the piece of paper she’d written them down on out of her other pocket, crumpled and creased and completely forgotten about after she’d picked it up that morning.

“Oh,” Lisa said, suddenly understanding where the vague feeling she had about forgetting something was coming from.

“We’ll think of something,” Stevie said with a shrug. “Maybe we can get Max to award them?”

“He wasn’t riding with us though,” Carole said. “I think we might have to pick.”

“Well,” Lisa said, “We’ve got a few minutes while they’re all busy. Hopefully one of us can think of something by the time we need to hand them out!”

Untacking and grooming their horses seemed like it took forever, even for the Saddle Club, who knew exactly what the prizes were and where they were hidden, and even Carole had to be careful she didn't rush overmuch in brushing sweat and dust out of Starlight's coat.

Before too long, they all met outside Topside's stall, and Meg Roberts was nominated as the Pony Clubber to go inside the stall to look for the clue. Topside was a very well trained horse, and had excellent stable manners, but he was still a thoroughbred, and he did get spooked by sudden movements sometimes, so it was safer to just have one person moving near him.

Meg was careful to keep one hand on Topside's flanks as she stepped into the stall so that he would always know where she was as well. She scanned the walls of the stall, but didn't see anything. The original plan had been to tape the clue on the side of Patch’s stall with a clue about putting their eyes on Patch. Stevie had had a last-minute brainwave, though, and decided that "Topside's tail" sounded enough like "top sail" to make the clue more obvious, and so she'd done her best herringbone tail wrap around Topside's dock, and carefully tucked a slip of paper with the clue written on it into the top of the weave.

It didn't take Meg long to spot the tip of yellowed paper peeking out the top of the tail bandage, and she groaned as she got the joke, before explaining it to the rest of the Pony Club. It was easy enough for her to pull the clue out of the bandage and read it out.

" _ The end is near, so these words obey. Go to the room that is filled with hay. _ "

"Stevie," groaned Lisa, because that was possibly the worst rhyme Stevie had come up with. No wonder it was also the only one she hadn't read out to Carole and Lisa before then.

"I was hoping I'd think of a better one by this morning," Stevie confessed in a whisper, and Lisa had to giggle. Stevie had really come through on the rest of the clues, so she couldn't really blame her for one clunker.

The riders all trooped off towards the hay barn then, with Carole lingering behind for a moment to give Topside a carrot stick as thanks for putting up with them all clustering around his stall, and to pat him and promise she'd be back to take the tail wrap off a little later. It wouldn't hurt him to have it on for another hour or so, anyway.

As the riders came into the hay barn, they could see all the food they'd brought in before the Pony Club meeting laid out on some of the hay bales along the wall by the door. Mrs Reg and Max had been busy while they’d been out on the trail, and they’d carried snacks out of the fridge, plus set out bowls of popcorn, and chips. Stevie had also donated a few bags of Jolly Ranchers, on the principle that it was close enough to Jolly Roger. A couple of the Pony Clubbers immediately dove for paper plates to start helping themselves, distracted by the snacks. Treasure hunting was hungry work!

"I'm not sure what else we're supposed to do," Corey said to Jasmine and May, the three of them still far more focused on the clues than on the cookies and chips laid out, or the plate of hot dogs that had been Max's contribution, fresh off the grill.

"Have another look at the map," Lisa suggested to them, and May's eyes went wide as she traced the hoof-print stamps from the envelope that Lisa had drawn to symbolize the mailbox, to the stable building, to the mark just beside it.

"X marks the spot!" she said happily, and looked around the barn to see if she could find the marking anywhere. She crouched down to check the floor, and then began to prowl around the walls in case it was chalked down or stuck on there.

"Oh! It's the hay!" Corey said, diving for the five bales in the center of the cleared space, and she shoved her arm into the center bale, wiggling it around and trying not to get too much hay stuck in her shirt.

"I've got it," she said, pulling out her second 'treasure' of the day — a bag filled with chocolate doubloons from the party supply store at the Willow Creek mall, that Stevie had stashed underneath the hay and hoped would be easy enough to retrieve.

The riders all cheered, and lined up to get their 'loot', with enough pieces in there for each of them to have three.

"What a great party," Carole said, happily feeling the outline of her father's compass in the pocket of her breeches.

"What a great group of treasure-hunters," Stevie corrected her. "Especially the mini Saddle Club," she added, pointing to May, Jasmine and Corey, who were alternating eating their chocolate doubloons with a handful of the Reese’s pieces that had been Simon's contribution to the snacks. "They were amazing."

"I think they're our hoof-pick winners, too," Carole said, and Lisa and Stevie had to agree. There wasn’t really any competition; they’d been the standout performers through the whole trail ride and treasure hunt, and Corey had been the first one to work out where the X that marked the spot was, too.

"So," Max said, once everyone had sat down with a plate and was starting to eat, "Did everyone have fun today?"

"Yes!" they all replied.

"Does anyone have anything else they'd like to add?" he asked.

"Happy birthday, and three cheers for Horse Wise!" Stevie suggested, and they gave them with vigor.

“I’d like to thank the Saddle Club for organizing all of this, too,” Max said quietly, giving the three of them an approving look. Carole beamed, Lisa grinned, and Stevie knew that her ears were going a little red, but it was awfully nice to know that Max was proud of them, and appreciated their work. It had been a whole lot of fun, too, from working out the clues to actually getting to ride around with all of their friends to solve them.

“I think we can mark this down as another successful Saddle Club project,” Stevie said.

* * *

_ Q: How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator? _

_ A: There’s a mini parked out front. _

**Author's Note:**

> The framing jokes are from very fuzzy memories of the late 1980s classic 101 Best Jokes book that I'm sure both Stevie and Colonel Hanson ALSO had copies of...


End file.
